Clearing up space through deleting Apps in iTunes

Hello all, I was looking for an iTunes specific sub-forum but couldn't find one. Sorry if this isn't in the correct space.

I have a Mac Mini with a 500GB hard drive in it and it's starting to fill up. I am going to replace it with a 500GB SSD (which, I realize, does not clear up my space issue, but it will increase speed and then I might use the HDD as a USB storage drive or figure out how to keep it in the case as a slave drive) but I want to clear up as much space as possible before copying the data over.

My wife and I have had iDevices for a very long time. She had the first iPhone. So we have a LOT of apps in iTunes. Since Apple now allows you to download apps from the cloud, I want to clean this up a bit. My thought was to delete all the apps from iTunes, and hook each device we have to the computer and do a transfer purchases so that only the apps we are currently using are in iTunes getting updated. My question is, would this work? Would I get all the apps off of our devices? Has anyone tried anything like this before?

It doesn't delete your apps from your iDevices and it will fill up your computer's HDD with the apps currently on your iDevices.

Don't quote me on that though. I've had it happen to me that iTunes just randomly started to remove apps from my iPhone. I unplugged it on time though to save a lot of apps from certain death but it can happen. Usually not the case though.

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